ryanmon

I love how the math is just random stuff probably copied and pasted from wikipedia.

FYI, the function being defined to find the minimum number of orcs needed to screw in a light bulb is likely not integrable and definitely not differentiable. So, most of those formulas there cannot be used. And the ones leftover (defining the recursive sequence and the triangle inequality) are useless for finding the min.

villainousfox

ryanmon wrote:FYI, the function being defined to find the minimum number of orcs needed to screw in a light bulb is likely not integrable and definitely not differentiable. So, most of those formulas there cannot be used. And the ones leftover (defining the recursive sequence and the triangle inequality) are useless for finding the min.

Hey look everyone, it's that guy!

Do they get the energy for these bulbs from Mount Doom? Because really that's the only sustainable way to power the war machine. Sauron can't just buy power and men from the Haradrim, he has budget issues too, I'm sure.

nmchapma

It is believed that the corruption of the Elves captured by Morgoth involved eating the flesh of fellow Elves, therefore losing their immortality and becoming horribly disfigured as punishment.

Goblins are what Tolkien called the Orcs that Thorin and Company encountered in the book The Hobbit. They lived deep under the Misty Mountains in many strongholds, ever since the War of Wrath in the First Age. In The Hobbit, Tolkien described them as big, ugly creatures, "cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted." Tolkien explained in a note at the start of The Hobbit that he was using English to represent the languages used by the characters, and that goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kind) was the English translation he was using for the word Orc, which (he wrote) is the hobbits' form of the name for them. Tolkien used the term goblin extensively in The Hobbit, and also occasionally in The Lord of the Rings, as when the Uruk-hai of Isengard are first described: "four goblin-soldiers of greater stature".

A clear illustration that Tolkien considered goblins and orcs to be the same thing, the former word merely the English translation of the latter, is that in The Hobbit (the only one of Tolkien's works in which he usually refers to orcs as goblins) Gandalf asks Thorin if he remembers Azog the goblin who killed his grandfather Thror, while in all his other writings Tolkien describes Azog as a "great Orc."

"Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places [in The Hobbit] but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)"
—J.R.R. Tolkien, Preface to The Hobbit

Though, he does misuse the prefix hob to mean larger when in fact it would mean smaller.

spafrica2003

nmchapma wrote:It is believed that the corruption of the Elves captured by Morgoth involved eating the flesh of fellow Elves, therefore losing their immortality and becoming horribly disfigured as punishment.

Goblins are what Tolkien called the Orcs that Thorin and Company encountered in the book The Hobbit. They lived deep under the Misty Mountains in many strongholds, ever since the War of Wrath in the First Age. In The Hobbit, Tolkien described them as big, ugly creatures, "cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted." Tolkien explained in a note at the start of The Hobbit that he was using English to represent the languages used by the characters, and that goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kind) was the English translation he was using for the word Orc, which (he wrote) is the hobbits' form of the name for them. Tolkien used the term goblin extensively in The Hobbit, and also occasionally in The Lord of the Rings, as when the Uruk-hai of Isengard are first described: "four goblin-soldiers of greater stature".

A clear illustration that Tolkien considered goblins and orcs to be the same thing, the former word merely the English translation of the latter, is that in The Hobbit (the only one of Tolkien's works in which he usually refers to orcs as goblins) Gandalf asks Thorin if he remembers Azog the goblin who killed his grandfather Thror, while in all his other writings Tolkien describes Azog as a "great Orc."

"Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places [in The Hobbit] but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)"
—J.R.R. Tolkien, Preface to The Hobbit

Though, he does misuse the prefix hob to mean larger when in fact it would mean smaller.

Wow. There are nerds and then there are nerds. Having only read the entire LOTR cover to cover twice, it's apparent that I am still not nearly ready for this level of nerdism...er... I mean conversation.

lethargicmass

lethargicmass

petartag wrote:a constant of integration IS needed unless the initial conditions are Zero

Not quite. A constant is needed if the integration does not specify limits (is an indefinite integral). The integrals in the write-up all have limits; therefore, as definite integrals, their solutions do not -- and cannot -- contain constants.

lethargicmass

pg318 wrote:I still don't get why they didn't get the Great Eagles to just drop them directly at the Cracks of Doom...

This debate has been raging for decades in the Tolkien community. My opinion is that you're right; Tolkien was writing a bloody book, and made choices based on maximizing the drama and interest of the plot. The eagles were clearly used as a handy plot device to get Frodo and Sam out of an otherwise completely hopeless situation. To play devil's advocate, however, here are what I see as the main points against having the eagles carry the ring to Mount Doom:

In the two instances when the eagles rescued our heroes in The Hobbit -- first when when trapped by orcs and wargs, and later when they join the Battle of Five Armies -- Tolkien writes that they did so of their own volition because they hate orcs and wargs, and not because they were part of the team or anything. Note that they showed up fashionably late to the final Hobbit battle; they clearly weren't planning on helping out for the sake of helping out, or they'd have shown up on time.

And when they do deign to rescue the hobbits from the orcs and wargs, they're huffy and stingy about it; claiming that they have their own business to attend to, and refusing to carry them very far. This further supports the eagles-as-aloof-and-uninterested argument.

The eagles rescue Gandalf individually twice: Once from Orthanc, and once from the Black Tower in southern Mirkwood. Now, it is presented in the book that Gandalf's rescue from Orthanc was essentially by chance: His fellow wizard Radagast had a message for him, and Gandalf had had all his messages forwarded to Orthanc, as he knew he was going there to meet with Saruman, so Radagast used his special beast-talker powers to persuade an eagle to deliver the message, and the eagle found Gandalf imprisoned and carried him off. So this can be written off as chance and Radagast's special Istari power. But one can also recall that Gandalf is special: as one of the Maiar sent down, Jesus-like, to Middle Earth by the Valar (gods) to help guide the lesser races, he should be expected to have some value to the gods, and therefore that their explicit intervention -- in the form of sending eagles to rescue him -- would be perfectly reasonable. This does not mean that the eagles are anyone's bïtches; ready to drop everything on a moment's notice and come save your ass.

Perhaps most crucially: When the eagles actually do fly into Mordor, it is only after the Ring has been destroyed and Sauron's power is gone with it. The fact that Gandalf waits pointedly for this to occur first implies almost undeniably that he did not believe they could have been able (or, perhaps, willing) to make the trip while Sauron and the Nazgul retained their powers.

And finally, a bit of a cheat: Almost certainly due to Tolkien's Catholic upbringing, the gods of Middle earth are very much the set-it-up-as-a-challenge-now-you-figure-it-out-yourselves types. It would be exactly in their way to purposely withhold the help of the eagles from the Fellowship in order to require those were about to inherit the Fourth Age of Middle earth (as the elves all left, ending the Third Age) to learn and grow.

skemmis

lethargicmass wrote:This debate has been raging for decades in the Tolkien community. My opinion is that you're right; Tolkien was writing a bloody book, and made choices based on maximizing the drama and interest of the plot. The eagles were clearly used as a handy plot device to get Frodo and Sam out of an otherwise completely hopeless situation. To play devil's advocate, however, here are what I see as the main points against having the eagles carry the ring to Mount Doom:

In the two instances when the eagles rescued our heroes in The Hobbit -- first when when trapped by orcs and wargs, and later when they join the Battle of Five Armies -- Tolkien writes that they did so of their own volition because they hate orcs and wargs, and not because they were part of the team or anything. Note that they showed up fashionably late to the final Hobbit battle; they clearly weren't planning on helping out for the sake of helping out, or they'd have shown up on time.

And when they do deign to rescue the hobbits from the orcs and wargs, they're huffy and stingy about it; claiming that they have their own business to attend to, and refusing to carry them very far. This further supports the eagles-as-aloof-and-uninterested argument.

The eagles rescue Gandalf individually twice: Once from Orthanc, and once from the Black Tower in southern Mirkwood. Now, it is presented in the book that Gandalf's rescue from Orthanc was essentially by chance: His fellow wizard Radagast had a message for him, and Gandalf had had all his messages forwarded to Orthanc, as he knew he was going there to meet with Saruman, so Radagast used his special beast-talker powers to persuade an eagle to deliver the message, and the eagle found Gandalf imprisoned and carried him off. So this can be written off as chance and Radagast's special Istari power. But one can also recall that Gandalf is special: as one of the Maiar sent down, Jesus-like, to Middle Earth by the Valar (gods) to help guide the lesser races, he should be expected to have some value to the gods, and therefore that their explicit intervention -- in the form of sending eagles to rescue him -- would be perfectly reasonable. This does not mean that the eagles are anyone's bïtches; ready to drop everything on a moment's notice and come save your ass.

Perhaps most crucially: When the eagles actually do fly into Mordor, it is only after the Ring has been destroyed and Sauron's power is gone with it. The fact that Gandalf waits pointedly for this to occur first implies almost undeniably that he did not believe they could have been able (or, perhaps, willing) to make the trip while Sauron and the Nazgul retained their powers.

And finally, a bit of a cheat: Almost certainly due to Tolkien's Catholic upbringing, the gods of Middle earth are very much the set-it-up-as-a-challenge-now-you-figure-it-out-yourselves types. It would be exactly in their way to purposely withhold the help of the eagles from the Fellowship in order to require those were about to inherit the Fourth Age of Middle earth (as the elves all left, ending the Third Age) to learn and grow.

Woot.com is operated by Woot Services LLC.
Products on Woot.com are sold by Woot, Inc., other than items on Wine.Woot which are sold by the seller specified on the product detail page.
Product narratives are for entertainment purposes and frequently employ
literary point of view;
the narratives do not express Woot's editorial opinion.
Aside from literary abuse, your use of this site also subjects you to Woot's
terms of use
and
privacy policy.
Woot may designate a user comment as a Quality Post, but that doesn't mean we agree with or guarantee anything said or linked to in that post.